Uninsured rates dropping in Connecticut and across the country

Data Editor

Nine out of 10 working-age adults in the United States were covered by health insurance last year, and the number of uninsured continues to decline, according to new figures released by the federal government.

In 2014, about 11.5 percent of those surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention did not have public or private health insurance coverage.

In 2015, the number of adults who did not have insurance for more than a year declined to 9.1 percent. That’s about 28.6 million people— or 7.4 million fewer than in 2014.

The number of uninsured has been in decline for several years, but dropped significantly as different parts of the Affordable Care Act took effect after it was passed in 2010.

For adults between the ages of 18 and 64, the percentage of uninsured decreased from 16.3 percent in 2014 to 12.8 percent in 2015.

Meanwhile, the percentage of people covered by private and public insurance increased to 69.7 percent and 19 percent respectively.

Coincidentally, the U.S. Census also released data on the percent of uninsured residents looking specifically at counties across different demographics and income levels. There is a lag in compiling such specific data so 2014 is the latest year for which figures have been provided.

More than 72 percent of the counties in the country saw a decrease in uninsured rate for working-age adults between 2013 and 2014.

In 2014, when a provision of Obamacare took effect, states were given the opportunity to expand their Medicaid eligibility to most working-age adults living at or below 138 percent of the poverty line.

Between 2013 and 2014, the percentage of uninsured working-age adults living at or below 138 percent of poverty declined in 59.3 percent of U.S. counties.

Connecticut

The percentage of uninsured adults dropped from 13.2 in 2013 to 9.6 percent in 2014.

Hispanic and black residents saw the sharpest drop in the percentage of uninsured.

Fairfield County had the highest rate of working-age adults who were uninsured – at 12.6 percent.

Middlesex County had the lowest rate of working-age adults who were uninsured – at 6.4 percent.

Hartford and Windham counties had the largest decreases in the rate of uninsured at 4.2 and 5 percentage points respectively.

Check our work: The GitHub repository containing our work is available here. We encourage you to look over our calculations and expand upon our analysis.

Andrew is a data editor at TrendCT.org and the Connecticut Mirror. He teaches data visualization at Central Connecticut State University as well intro to data journalism at Wesleyan University as a Koeppel Fellow.
He was a founding producer of The Boston Globe's Data Desk where he used a variety of methods to visualize or tell stories with data. Andrew also was an online producer at The Virginian-Pilot and a staff writer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He’s a Metpro Fellow, a Chips Quinn Scholar, and a graduate of the University of Texas.